Flying Ghurkas

Haven't gotten to the Mahabharata yet. Still plowing thru the Rig Veda.
Boy, does Indra dig the soma, or what? He's like the Indian version of Thor - Hard drinking, lightning wielding, demon fighting SOB! Defender of gods and men.

Keith
 
Sounds like prophecy. Just Substitute SU-30 or Mig-29 for the word "Vimana". Load it up with a nuclear armed SAM and you have the exact same thing as described in that passage. When was that written?
 
Originally posted by Ferrous Wheel
Haven't gotten to the Mahabharata yet. Still plowing thru the Rig Veda.
Boy, does Indra dig the soma, or what? He's like the Indian version of Thor - Hard drinking, lightning wielding, demon fighting SOB! Defender of gods and men.

Keith
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Heck, I haven't even gotten through Zelazny's Lord of Light yet.:rolleyes: :p
 
"Heck, I haven't even gotten through Zelazny's Lord of Light yet".read all of his book's .He's a blast!:)
 
I agree. He's good.
I need to quit my job so I can get more time to goof off ( read, make excuses, sleep, etc ad nauseum) like my brother-in law does.
Just kidding.:rolleyes:
 
It certainly does. Every culture's got em, and they're all pretty sci-fi sounding.
The Hopi tribe say that their progenitors came from the stars, and a quick glance at their culture, costume, and cosmology seems to back that up.
Certain Mesopotamian legends (ca. 3000 B.C.E) talk of star people visiting inns ships, taking people up to see the earth from orbit, then dropping them back off on earth. What a ride, eh?


"When was that written" The Rig Veda was written about 7000 years ago, and the Mahabharata i think is younger, weighing in at a mere 4000-5000 years ago.

I'd say, "wow, those guys were writing way before we of european descent, etc" but 'we' were 'they' back then. At least descended from them, as mentioned in "In search of the Indo-Europeans."

Keith
 
Originally posted by Roger Smith
I agree. He's good.
I need to quit my job so I can get more time to goof off ( read, make excuses, sleep, etc ad nauseum) like my brother-in law does.
Just kidding.:rolleyes:
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It's not goof'ing off ,It's "Called Research!!!101 ":D
 
Originally posted by Ferrous Wheel
Boy, does Indra dig the soma, or what? He's like the Indian version of Thor - Hard drinking, lightning wielding, demon fighting SOB! Defender of gods and men.

Keith
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Doesn't Krishna whomp up on him at some point?

S.
 
Never!!! Well maybe????Let's see what we get from the scholar's at this point.
 
If so, not in the Rig Veda. Most of the later gods aren't even mentioned in the RigVeda. It mostly deals with:

Agni - Fire god and messenger of the gods
Mitra/Varuna - Day and night gods of justice
Indra - Fiery tempered demon killer
Various elemental forces that help the gods

No mention yet of Vishnu, Kali-Ma, or any of the others. I'm maybe 100-200 pages in. the first 50 seemed to be a call to the gods, thru Agni, to join their human buddies for a sacred drink. Very similar pattern to Sumbel, a Viking-age scandinavian ritual toast and feast to honor Gods and Goddesses, and to invite them down to party. The Norse pantheon and cosmology is veeery similar to the Indian one. (Consider that the source is the same, or if you're of the Jungian school, you'd certainly pass this off as proof of the Collective Unconscious).

Keith
 
The "we came from outer space" advocates love to quote all these ancient texts as "proof" that we were planted here as an experiment conducted by superior beings.
 
From From: Ralph T. H. Griffith, trans., The Hymns of the Rig Veda, 4 vols. (Benares; E. J. Lazarus and Co., 1889-1892), Vol 1, pp. 56-59, on the web at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/

HYMN XXXII. Indra.

I will declare the manly deeds of Indra, the first that he achieved, the thunder wielder.
He slew the dragon, then disclosed the waters, and cleft the channels of the mountain torrents.
He slew the dragon lying on the mountain: his heavenly bolt of thunder Twashtar fashioned.
Like lowing cows in rapid flow descending the waters glided downward to the ocean.
Impetuous as a bull, he chose the Soma, and quaffed in threefold sacrifice the juices.
Maghavan grasped the thunder for his weapon, and smote to death this firstborn of the dragons.
When, Indra, thou hadst slain the dragons' firstborn, and overcome the charms of the enchanters,
Then, giving life to sun and dawn and heaven, thou foundest not one foe to stand against thee.
Indra with his own great and deadly thunder smote into pieces Vritra worst of Vritras.
As trunks of trees, what time the axe hath felled them, low on the earth so lies the prostrate dragon.
He, like a mad weak warrior, challenged Indra, the great impetuous many-slaying hero.
He, brooking not the clashing of the weapons, crushed Indra's foe, the shattered forts in falling,
Footless and handless, still he challenged Indra, who smote him with his bolt between the shoulders.
Emasculate yet claiming manly vigor, thus Vritra lay with scattered limbs dissevered. . .
Nothing availed him lightning, nothing thunder, hailstorm or mist which he had spread around him:
When Indra and the dragon strove in battle, Maghavan gained the victory forever.
Whom sawest thou to avenge the dragon, Indra, that fear possessed thy heart when thou hadst slain him;
That, like a hawk affrighted through the regions, thou crossedst nine-and-ninety flowing rivers?
Indra is king of all that moves and moves not, of creatures tame and horned, the thunder-wielder.
Over all living men he rules as sovereign, containing all as spokes within the felly.
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...Saga stuff on Thor, for comparative purposes. You'll see Indra and Thor are cut from the same divine cloth...

By the way, we still celebrate a number of the old pagan norse gods (and goddesses) about once a week. BS you say? Here is the proof:

English: Thursday -> Thurs-day --> Thor's day
German: Donnerstag -> Donner's Tag --> The Thunderer's Day

Donner is german for thunder, and blitzen is german for lightining.
A quick look at the Santa Claus legend shows us that he has reindeer named donner and blitzen (thunder and lightning!) Thor's ram-drawn chariot had rams named donner and blitzen...

Did you know: That in Germany, the day Wednesday (Ger:Wodenstag - Woden=Odin) was changed to Mittwoch (mid-week) by conversion-era christians as an attempt to break the folk away from the Allfather? Odin (or Woden) was the most important and influential of the Norse gonds at that time, and Christianity would not be able to take root in Germanic Europe without first eradicating the cult of Odin.

I could go for days on comparative myths and legends, but this is enough for now.

Keith
 
TO continue with the comparison of the Nordic god Thor to the Indic of Indra:

"Now that the Æsir saw surely that the hill-giant was come thither, they ... called on Thor, who came as quickly. And straightway the hammer Mjöllnir was raised aloft; he paid the wright's wage, and not with the sun and the moon. Nay, he even denied him dwelling in Jötunheim, and struck but the one first blow, so that his skull was burst into small crumbs, and sent him down bellow under Niflhel"
--Prose Edda

"Then Hrungnir went his way, and galloped furiously until he came to Jötunheim. The news of his journey was spread abroad among the giants, and it became noised abroad that a meeting had been arranged between him and Thor; the giants deemed that they had much at stake, who should win the victory, since they looked for ill at Thor's hands if Hrungnir perished, he being strongest of them all. Then the giants made a man of clay at Grjótúnagard: he was nine miles high and three broad under the arm-pits; but they could get no heart big enough to fit him, until they took one from a mare. Even that was not steadfast within him, when Thor came. Hrungnir had the heart which is notorious, of hard stone and spiked with three corners, even as the written character is since formed, which men call Hrungnir's Heart. His head also was of stone; his shield too was stone, wide and thick, and he had the shield before him when he stood at Grjótúnagard and waited for Thor. Moreover he had a hone for a weapon, and brandished it over his shoulders, and he was not a pretty sight. At one side of him stood the clay giant, which was called Mökkurkálfi: he was sore afraid, and it is said that he wet himself when he saw Thor.

"Thor went to the meeting-place, and Thjálfi with him. Then Thjálfi ran forward to the spot where Hrungnir stood and said to him: 'Thou standest unwarily, Giant, having the shield before thee: for Thor has seen thee, and comes hither down below the earth, and will come at thee from beneath.' Then Hrungnir thrust the shield under his feet and stood upon it, wielding the hone with both hands. Then speedily he saw lightnings and heard great claps of thunder; then he saw Thor in God-like anger, who came forward furiously and swung the hammer and cast it at Hrungnir from afar off. Hrungnir lifted up the hone in both hands and cast it against him; it struck the hammer in flight, and the hone burst in sunder: one part fell to the earth, and thence are come all the flint-rocks; the other burst on Thor's head, so that he fell forward to the earth. But the hammer Mjöllnir struck Hrungnir in the middle of the head, and smashed his skull into small crumbs, and he fell forward upon Thor, so that his foot lay over Thor's neck. Thjálfi struck at Mökkurkálfi, and he fell with little glory.
--Prose Edda


Keith
 
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